Conference | Celebrating Scott’s ‘The Antiquary’
From Eventbrite:
Romantic Antiquarianism: A Conference Celebrating Scott’s The Antiquary
The Georgian Group, 6 Fitzroy Square, London, 26 November 2016
Co-organised by Fiona Robertson and Peter Lindfield
This one-day conference in the heart of London celebrates the bicentenary of the publication of Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Antiquary by looking at the multi-faceted nature of antiquarianism in Georgian Britain. Leading scholars from across the UK gather to present new and engaging material on the topic. Registration (£30) includes teas/coffees and lunch in one of Robert Adam’s town houses. Register online here.
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P R O G R A M M E
9.30 Registration and Introductions: Peter N. Lindfield (University of Stirling) and Fiona Robertson (University of Durham)
10.00 Plenary 1 (Chair: Fiona Robertson)
• Nicola J. Watson (Open University): ‘The Antiquary, the Discomforts of Antiquarianism, and the Ambitions of Abbotsford’
11.00 Morning Panel (Chair: Peter N. Lindfield)
• Rosemary Sweet (University of Leicester): ‘Antiquaries and the Antiquities of Everyday Life’
• Kelsey Williams (University of Stirling): ‘Antiquarianism and The Antiquary’
• Frances Sands (Sir John Soane Museum): ‘Robert Adam as Antiquarian Architect’
12.15 Lunch
1.15 Plenary 2 (Chair: Peter N. Lindfield)
• Christopher Woodward: ‘Ruins, Rescue and Antiquarianism in the Eighteenth-Century Imagination’
2.15 Afternoon Panel (Chair: Fiona Robertson)
• Catherine Jones (University of Aberdeen): ‘Mapping Antiquarianism’
• Peter N. Lindfield (University of Stirling): ‘Antiquarian Identities and Thomas Barritt’s Assumed Persona’
• Andrew Teverson (Kingston University): ‘Nicht Nought Nothing & Rashin Coatie: Andrew Lang’s Border Tales and the Influence of Walter Scott’
Conference | Architect-Designed Objects, 1650–1950
Designed by Robert Adam, made by Thomas Chippendale, The Dundas Sofa, commissioned 1764, made 1765, gilt pine and beech, with later silk upholstery (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston)
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From the MFAH:
A Sense of Proportion: Architect-Designed Objects, 1650–1950
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 24 September 2016
Rienzi, the MFAH house museum for European decorative arts, presents its biennial symposium. This edition focuses on objects that are the embodiments or extensions of an architect’s ideas or aesthetic. Scholars discuss objects made for particular spaces, objects used to explore new design sources, and objects intended to be part of an integrated space.
The keynote address will presented by Adriano Aymonino, coordinator of undergraduate programs, department of art history, University of Buckingham. Dr. Aymonino’s main academic interest is the reception of the classical tradition in the Early Modern period, with a particular focus on Britain. He is working on a revised edition of Francis Haskell and Nicholas Penny’s Taste and the Antique and on a project tracing the impact of antiquarian publications on 17th- and 18th-century European art and architecture. Aymonino obtained his PhD at the University of Venice and has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and at the Getty Research Institute.
Ticket information is available here»
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10:00 Welcome by Christine Gervais (director, Rienzi; curator, decorative art)
10:15 Keynote Address
• Robert Adam (1728–1792) and the Sources of the ‘True Style of Antique Decoration’, Adriano Aymonino (University of Buckingham)
11:30 Coffee Break
12:00 Session A
• Baroque Furnishings: Aesthetics and Design in Giacomo Amato’s Graphic Oeuvre (1643–1732), Sabina de Cavi, professor (University of Córdoba)
• Marvelous Volumes: Artistry of the 18th-Century British Designer’s Manuscript, Elizabeth Deans (assistant director, Smithsonian-George Mason University)
12:45 Lunch Break
1:50 Session B
• Jean-Démosthène Dugourc’s 1787 Model for a Jewel Cabinet and the Stakes of Royal Furniture Design in Pre-Revolutionary France, Iris Moon (visiting assistant professor, Pratt Institute)
• The Furniture Design Legacy of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Serena Newmark (doctoral student and English-language children’s programs assistant, Museum August Kestner)
2:35 Coffee Break
3:05 Session C
• The Quality of Calmness and Clarity: Heinrich Tessenow’s Search for Objectivity in the Design of Furniture and Household Goods, Jurjen Zeinstra (doctoral student and associate professor, University of Technology)
• Transitional Moments: Architectural Hardware, Marcel Breuer, and the Bauhaus in America, Robert Wiesenberger (doctoral student and curatorial fellow, Harvard Art Museums)
Conference | European Portrait Miniatures
From the conference flyer:
European Portrait Miniatures: Artists, Functions, and Collections
The Tansey Miniatures Foundation, Bomann-Museum, Celle, 11–13 November 2016
The conference is being held on the occasion of the opening of the sixth exhibition of the Tansey Miniatures Foundation and the publication of the accompanying catalogue Miniatures from the Baroque Period in the Tansey Collection.
Both conference venues are within walking distance (20 minutes) from the railway station. Trains from Hannover take approximately 25 to 45 minutes (Deutsche Bahn, Metronom, and S-Bahn).
For registration, please contact Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten, Head of the Residence Museum at Celle Castle, juliane.schmieglitz-otten@tansey-miniatures.com. For more information, please contact Bernd Pappe, Art Historian and Restorer, bernd.pappe@tansey-miniatures.com. Conception IT Coordination by Birgitt Schmedding, Photo Designer, birgitt.schmedding@tansey-miniatures.com.
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F R I D A Y , 1 1 N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6
15:00 Registration
16:30 Welcome and opening of the exhibition Miniatures from the Baroque Period in the Tansey Collection
S A T U R D A Y , 1 2 N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6
9:00 Objects, Agencies, and Social Practices
• Ulrike Kern (Frankfurt), The Limner’s Language: Words and Concepts Related to Miniature Painting in England
• Miranda L. Elston (Chapel Hill, North Carolina), Hilliard’s Miniatures: Enacted Desire within the Elizabethan Court
• Eloise Owens (New York), The Hand behind the Likeness: Women’s Practice as Portrait Miniaturists in Eighteenth-Century England
• Christoph Großpietsch (Salzburg), Portrait Miniatures of Mozart: Problems of Authenticity
• Violaine Joëssel (Geneva), A Quest for Legitimacy: The Practice of Miniature Painting in Colonial America
• Dimitri Gorchko (Moscow), ‘… et que tout ait un nom nouveau’: Portrait Miniatures of Napoleon’s Marshals, Generals, and Colonels: Analysis and Identification
13:00 Lunch
14:15 Politics and Representation
• Delia Schffer (Kassel), Power through Relations: Duke Louis of Württemberg‘s Family Ties in a Series of Miniature Portraits
• Sarah Grandin (Paris), Density in the ‘Boîte à Portrait’ under Louis XIV
• Stefanie Linsboth (Vienna), From Large-Scale Paintings to Precious Miniatures: Maria Theresa’s Portrait Miniatures
• Karin Schrader (Bad Nauheim), ‘Taking the Veil’: Miniatures of Royal Widows from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Centuries
16:30 Coffee
17:00 Special Techniques and Materials
• Tatjana Wischniowski (Dresden), Oil-Based Paint under a Layer of Water: Arnaud Vincent de Montpetit’s ‘Eludoric Painting’, a Rare Miniature Painting Technique
• Emma Rutherford, Alan Derbyshire, and Victoria Button (London), The Drawings of John Smart (1742–1811): Function, Purpose, and Line
S U N D A Y , 1 3 N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 6
9:00 Miniature Collections
• Lucy Davis (London), Famous Women in the Miniatures at The Wallace Collection
• Catherine Hess (San Marino, California), Up Close and Personal: Portrait Miniatures at The Huntington Art Collections
• Isabel M. Rodríguez-Marco (Madrid), The Collection of Portrait Miniatures and Small Portraits in the Museo Nacional de Artes Decorativas, Madrid
• Paul Caffrey (Dublin), European Enamels from the National Gallery of Ireland Collection
• Wladyslaw Maximowicz (Bergamo), The Portrait Miniature in Russian Provincial Collections
• Reetta Kuojärvi-Närhi (Helsinki), Small Treasures in Finland: Paul Sinebrycho as a Miniature Collector
13:00 Lunch
14:15 Miniature Painters
• Halgard Kuhn (Hannover), Peter Boy (c. 1650–1727): Medallions and Miniatures by the Frankfurt Baroque Goldsmith and Enamel Painter as Integrating Parts in Golden Jewellery
• Karen Hearn (London), The ‘Small Oil Colour Pictures’ of Cornelius Johnson (1593–1661)
• Marco Pupillo (Rome), Francesco Antonio Teriggi, a Miniaturist in the Service of Joseph Bonaparte
• Roger and Carmela Arturi Phillips (Ringwood), The True and Flawed Genius of John Engleheart
• Stephen Lloyd (Liverpool), Copying Portraits in Miniature in Regency England: The Work of William Derby (1786–1847) for the 13th Earl of Derby at Knowsley Hall
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The exhibition catalogue is distributed in North America and Japan by The University of Chicago Press (with information on the other five volumes published thus far from The Tansey Foundation). . .
Bernd Pappe and Juliane Schmieglitz-Otten, eds., Miniatures from the Baroque Period in the Tansey Collection / Miniaturen des Barock aus der Sammlung Tansey (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2016), 400 pages, ISBN: 978-3777426389, $64.
The Tansey miniatures, now held by the Bomann Museum in Celle, represent one of the most significant collections of European miniature paintings. This volume is the sixth in a series exploring the collection in key periods. Each volume presents new photographic reproductions of the miniatures at actual size and with close-up photographs that show important details. This volume covers portrait miniatures created throughout the Baroque period of the seventeenth-century, with more than one hundred representative works. Essays by specialists in the field offer insights into the artworks, their patrons, and the period. The resulting book is as informative as it is beautiful, a stunning testament to a bygone age and a once-popular form.
Conference | The Art Market, Collectors, and Agents
The first installment of the conference took place in July at the Warburg Institute in London. For the two days in Paris, I’ve included only the sessions most relevant to the eighteenth century. The full schedule is available from H-ArtHist:
The Art Market, Collectors, and Agents: Then and Now
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 20–21 October 2016
The focus of the conference is to explore the changing and complex nature of the role of agent in the art market during the Early Modern Period. Papers will explore shifts in the dynamics of the market, the changing taste of collectors and the importance of writers, critics, museum curators and dealers in influencing these changes. The papers demonstrate how examining the role of agents through their correspondence with clients, day books or private records, bring new insights into the workings of the art world through the detailed evidence of how transactions were negotiated.
We would like to thank the speakers’ institutions and the Institut d’Etudes Supérieres des Arts for supporting the conference. The conference is free but to register for the lunches (20€ per day), please email a.turpin@iesa.edu.
Organised by the Collecting and Display Seminar Group London with the Centre André Chastel, INHA, Paris.
• Tamsin Foulkes (PhD Candidate, University of Nottingham), James Thornhill as an Agent-Collector in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris
• Corina Meyer (Institute of Art History, University of Stuttgart), ‘To See Once Again the Glorious Picture by Moretto before It Is Forever Lost for Rome’: Johann David Passavant’s (1787–1861) Recommendations and Selection of Paintings
• Tina Kosak (France Stele Institute of Art History, ZRC SAZU Ljubljana), Conquering New Art Markets: International Art Dealers and Local ‘Agents’ in Inner Austria in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century
• Laura Popoviciu (PhD Candidate, Warburg Institute), Shaping the Taste of British Diplomats in Eighteenth-Century Venice
• Renata Schellenberg (Mount Allison University, Sackville, Canada), Commerce, Culture, and Connoisseurship: The Emergence of the Art Dealer in Eighteenth-Century Germany
Exhibition | In Pursuit of Pleasure: The Polite and Impolite
Now on view at Fairfax House:
In Pursuit of Pleasure: The Polite and Impolite World of Georgian Entertainment
Fairfax House, York, 29 July — 31 December 2016
From exotica to erotica, In Pursuit of Pleasure opens a window onto the outrageous and sometimes shocking behaviour of ‘polite society’—conducted in the name of entertainment.
Fairfax House’s major summer exhibition will look at the social scene in English towns and cities including London, delving into the tempting array of decadent activities and pleasurable pursuits catering for all tastes and predilections, sometimes challenging the notions of what ‘polite’ entertainment encompassed in the eighteenth century. In Pursuit of Pleasure also specifically uncovers the richness of Georgian York’s offerings as the social capital of the North and the place to see and be seen. With Burlington’s exquisite new Assembly Rooms, the excitement of the races, as well as the city’s renowned Theatre Royal, the city enjoyed a social and cultural renaissance. The explosion of luxury retail experiences combined to make York the destination of choice for those in pursuit of refined amusement. As well as exploring its lively winter season with rounds of dinners, balls, assemblies and parties, the exhibition delves into the city’s debauched diversions, including ‘polite’ society’s taste for notorious trials, visiting prisons and public hangings, the wanton pleasures available in the city’s brothels, as well as raucous activities such as cockfighting, bear baiting and street boxing. In exploring the full gamut of York’s lively social and cultural life In Pursuit of Pleasure reveals a fascinating world of the city’s exuberant, and often times murky, past.
The Fairfax House website includes images of objects in the exhibition, including a remarkable ivory dildo (more information on that here).
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2016 Georgian Studies Symposium
Polite and Impolite Pleasures: Entertaining the Georgian City
York Hilton Hotel and Fairfax House, York, 21 October 2016
Early registration ends 30 September 2016
The Georgian era saw a huge increase in the range and variety of entertainments available to an expanding and urbanising population. In the towns and cities of Georgian Britain, urban life offered a dazzling and constantly changing kaleidoscope of pleasures that could be enjoyed for a price. The lowest and the highest forms of entertainment were catered for along with everything in between, from the cultivated recreations of the nobility through the gentility of middle-class leisure to the earthier enjoyments of the ‘common folk’.
New cultures of entertainment reflected changing patterns of work, mobility and social relations, and reflected developments in class, gender and the dynamics of personal and collective identity. The urban environment itself was affected by these changing cultures of entertainment. From London to provincial centres, industrial cities to market towns, new promenades, parks, streets and squares were developed, new theatres, assembly rooms and concert halls were built and embellished. And paralleling this brightly-lit and orderly world of polite pleasure was another, darker urban realm of more dubious diversions: prostitution and prize fights, the gambling stew and the drinking den.
From theatrical performances and musical recitals, assemblies and dances, to race meetings, boxing matches, cock fights and hangings, the fourth Fairfax House Symposium in Georgian Studies explores the theme of Georgian entertainment and the ‘polite and impolite pleasures’ of the long eighteenth century (c.1680–1830).
Keynote Speakers
• Ivan Day (British and European culinary historian, scholar, broadcaster and writer)
‘Crocants, Collops, and Codsounds: Fashions in Dining and Food in Georgian Provincial Towns and Cities’
• Murray Pittock (Bradley Professor of English Literature, University of Glasgow)
‘Music, Theatre, Innovation, and Resistance: Edinburgh in the First Age of Enlightenment’
Conference | French Royal Furniture by Jean-Henri Riesener
In connection with the exhibition now on view, Waddeson Manor is hosting this conference:
A Closer Look: Spotlight on French Royal Furniture by Jean-Henri Riesener
The National Trust and Waddesdon Manor (Rothschild Collections) Annual Conference
Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire, 20 September 2016
To book a place, please call 01296 653226 between 10am and 4pm. The fee for the day is £25, which includes all catering; the fee can be paid with a debit or credit card. Please let us know if you have any dietary requirements. The nearest railway station is Aylesbury Vale Parkway (5–10 minutes from Waddesdon), and it is advisable to pre-book a taxi from the station to Waddesdon Manor. Another option is Aylesbury Station (10–15 minutes from Waddesdon); as a rule, there are taxis outside the station.
P R O G R A M M E
10:00 Registration and coffee
10:30 Welcome and introduction, Christopher Rowell (Furniture Curator, National Trust) and Pippa Shirley (Head of Collection, National Trust / Waddesdon Manor)
10:40 Riesener at Waddesdon Manor
• Emily Roy (Curator) and Ulrich Leben (Associate Curator), Introduction to the Exhibition and Research Project
• Lindsay Macnaughton (Oxford University Intern), Grammar and the Garde-Meuble de la Couronne: Chests of Drawers by Jean-Henri Riesener, 1774–84
• Juliet Carey (Senoir Curator), A Newly Discovered Portrait of Riesener
11:30 Riesener at the Wallace Collection
• Helen Jacobsen (Head of Curatorial Team, Wallace Collection): The 4th Marquess of Hertford’s Taste for Riesener, 1840–70
• Jürgen Huber (Senior Conservator, Wallace Collection): Riesener Revealed: Documentation and Observation…The Journey So Far
12:00 Rufus Bird (Deputy Surveyor of The Queen’s Works of Art, Royal Collections Trust), George IV and Riesener
12:15 Yannick Chastang (Independent Conservator), Riesener’s Floral Marquetry
12:30 Questions and discussion
13:00 Lunch
14:30 Bertrand Rondot (Chief Curator, Château de Versailles), Versailles, Riesener’s Palace
14.50 Wolf Burchardt (Furniture Research Curator, National Trust), Continental Furniture in National Trust Houses
15:10 Matthew Hirst (Curator, Woburn Abbey), French and Francophile Furniture in the Woburn Abbey Collection
15:30 Miriam Schefzyk (PhD Candidate, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster & École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris), Furniture with Porcelain Plaques at Waddesdon Manor
15:45 Carolyn Sargentson (Senior Lecturer in Art History, University of Sussex), A Business Model for Refinement? Riesener’s 1773 Commission for Pierre de Fontanieu
16:05 Questions and discussion
16:30 Tea
16:45 Entry to see the Riesener exhibition and collections
17:30 Wine reception
Conference | Art in the British Country House
Joseph Mallord William Turner, The South Wall of the Square Dining-Room (Petworth), 1827, gouache on paper, 13.8 × 18.8 cm
(London: Tate).
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From the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art:
Art in the British Country House: Collecting and Display
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 7 October 2016
This conference is the first in a series associated with the Paul Mellon Centre’s flagship research project Art in the British Country House: Collecting and Display, which investigates the collection and display of works of art in the country house in Britain from the sixteenth century to the present day.
The crucial importance of the country house to understanding the history of art-collection and display in Britain is indisputable and of long-standing interest to historians of British art. This project, in turning a fresh eye on the collections of art associated with the country house, builds on exciting new developments within this area of scholarship, which shed new light on the wide range of motivations and circumstances that have shaped such collections. The project extends to the country house a growing scholarly interest in modes of pictorial display, which has hitherto tended to focus on the display of paintings, sculpture and prints within more urban and public environments, and on the exhibition space in particular.
The conference will consist of eight papers, followed by a keynote lecture. The papers will be grouped together in themes over four sections, addressing subject matter ranging from the mid-seventeenth century to the late nineteenth century. In the keynote lecture Adriano Ayminino will address the aspects of the history and methodology of country house scholarship over the past hundred years.
General Admission: £20 (+ admin fee)
Concession ticket: £15 (+ admin fee)
The concession rate is available for students and 60+. Ticket prices include refreshments, lunch and drinks reception
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P R O G R A M M E
9:00 Registration
9:30 Welcome and Introduction by Martin Postle
9:45 Emily Burns (University of Nottingham), The Grand Designs of Sir Justinian Isham: Investigating the Patronage, Collecting and Display at Lamport Hall during the Interregnum
10:10 Amelia Smith (Birkbeck College, University of London), “The most capital masters dispers’d all over the house”: Displays of Art at Longford Castle in the Late Eighteenth Century
10:55 Coffee
11:25 Susan Gordon (University of Leicester), ‘Bronzo Mad’: The Choice, Order and Location of General James Dormer’s Sculpture, Collection at Rousham, Oxfordshire
11:50 Joan Coutu (University of Waterloo), The Future of the Past: Copies of Antique Statues at Wentworth Woodhouse
12:35 Lunch
13:50 Peter Björn Kerber (J. Paul Getty Museum), The Audio- Visual Charles Jennens
14:15 Andrew Loukes (Petworth House, National Trust) ‘Solid, liberal, rich and English’: Patronage and Patriotism at Petworth in the Early 19th Century
15:00 Tea and coffee
15:30 Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth (University of Leeds) Forming Hierarchies and Creating Dialogues: Ferdinand de Rothschild’s Display of Sèvres Porcelain at Waddesdon Manor
15:55 Nicola Pickering (London Transport Museum), Mayer Amschel de Rothschild and Mentmore Towers: Displaying le goût Rothschild
16:40 Keynote Speaker: Adriano Aymonino (University of Buckingham)
17:45 Drinks Reception
Conference | Capability Brown: Perception and Response
Programme for the conference:
Capability Brown: Perception and Response in a Global Context
University of Bath, 9–11 September 2016
Capability Brown changed the face of 18th-century England. Yet he left little written explanation of his work. Much must be inferred from his surviving landscapes and by seeing his work in the wider context of the naturalistic style that developed in Europe and further afield. This major conference, organised by the Cultural Landscapes and Historic Gardens Committee of ICOMOS-UK (International Council on Monuments and Sites UK), will be one of the highlights of the first-ever national Capability Brown Festival, providing an international dimension to complement the UK’s national festival of events, openings, exhibitions and publications.
Over a three-day conference in the historic city of Bath (one of the UK’s World Heritage Sites), world-renowned researchers and practitioners will present Brown’s work in a global context and explore the ways in which it has been interpreted over the last 250 years. The conference will include evening receptions at Prior Park, the Brown designed valley garden with its iconic Palladian bridge overlooking the city, and at the Bath Assembly Rooms. There will also be a tour of Brown’s landscape at Croome Court, recently restored by the National Trust. Conference papers will be published for delegates in a special edition of Garden History.
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F R I D A Y , 9 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6
10:00 Registration
11:00 Session I | Brown in Great Britain
• Welcome by David Thackray OBE (President of ICOMOS-UK)
• Address by His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO (Patron, ICOMOS-UK)
• Introduction by Marion Harney (University of Bath)
• Keynote Talk: Brown and Neo-Classicism, John Dixon Hunt (University of Pennsylvania)
• Lancelot Brown’s Design of the Waters at Blenheim, Hal Moggridge OBE VMH (Past President of the Landscape Institute, Consulting Landscape Architect at Blenheim, 1981–2001)
12.40 Lunch
14:00 Session I | Brown in Great Britain, continued
• Shrubbery to Grove and Flower Garden to Meadow, Mark Laird (Historic Landscape Consultant)
• Brown at Burghley: Aestheticising the Medieval Past, Megan Aldrich (Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London)
15:00 Afternoon Break
15:30 Session 2 | Brown as Perceived Abroad, part A
• The Limits of Brown’s Landscape: Translations of the Landscape Garden into Ireland, Finola O’Kane Crimmins (University College Dublin)
• Models in this Art: Tracing the Brownian Landscape Tradition in America, Therese O’Malley (Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC)
18.30 Reception at Prior Park (depart at 17:45)
S A T U R D A Y , 1 0 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6
9:30 Session 3 | Brown as Perceived Abroad, part B
• Introduction by Michael Symes (Garden Historian)
• Brown Invisible in France? The French Perception and Reception of Gardens in Eighteenth Century Britain, Laurent Châtel (Université Paris-Sorbonne) and Monique Mosser (Garden Historian)
• The English Garden in the Low Countries and the Principauté of Liège, Nathalie de Harlez de Deulin (Université de Liège)
• Thomas Whately, Catherine the Great, and the Brownian Tradition in Russia, Boris Sokolov (Russian State University for the Humanities)
• Capability Brown’s Design for Schönenberg at Laeken near Brussels, 1782, Wim Oers (Catholic University of Leuven)
• Hungarian Garden Tourists in Search of Brown’s Legacy, Kristor Fatsar (Writtle College, University of Essex)
• Brown’s Impact on Garden Design in Hungary, Gábor Alfödy (Landscape Architect and Garden Historian)
13:10 Lunch
14:25 Session 4 | Echoes of Brown
• Introduction by Peter Goodchild (Director of The Garden and Landscape Heritage Trust, UK)
• George Parkyn’s “Entwürfe…” Published in Leipzig in 1796 and 1805, Eva Ruoff (Aalto University)
• The Early Landscape Garden in Germany, Marcus Köhler (Technische Universtaet Dresden)
• Beauty in Simplicity: An Exploration of the Design Principles of Capability Brown, Matthew Tickner (Director, Cookson & Tickner Ltd) and Will Cookson (Landscape Architect, Cookson & Tickner Ltd)
• Misconceptions, John Phibbs (Principal, Debois Landscape Survey Group)
• Why Celebrate Capability Brown?, Oliver Cox (University of Oxford)
18.00 Civic Reception in the Assembly Rooms, with Address from Dame Helen Ghosh (Director-General of the National Trust)
S U N D A Y , 1 1 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 6
9:00 Session 5 | Reflections on Brown’s Legacy
• Introduction by Steven Brown (Chair of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee of Cultural Landscapes)
• Reflections and Future Directions, Michael Symes (Garden Historian)
10:00 Coffee
10:30 Depart in coaches for Croome Court, Worcestershire
12:30 Site Visit to Croome Court
16:00 Depart Croome Court to return to Bath
Exhibition | Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints
Ding Liangxian, Pomegranate and Magnolia with Bird, (detail), Qing Dynasty, 1700–50; woodblock print with embossing, ink, and colors on paper (multiblock technique with hand-coloring), 11 7/8 × 14 3/4 inches (Boston: Museum of Fine Arts)
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Press release (28 June 2016) from The Huntington:
Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints
The Huntington, San Marino, CA, 17 September 2016 — 9 January 2017
Curated by June Li and Suzanne Wright
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens will present a major international loan exhibition exploring the art, craft, and cultural significance of Chinese woodblock prints made during their golden age, with works made from the late 16th century through the 19th century. Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints brings together 48 of the finest examples gathered from the National Library of China, Beijing; the Nanjing Library; the Shanghai Museum; and 14 institutional and private collections in the United States. The exhibition presents monumental visual accounts of sprawling, architecturally elaborate ‘scholar’s gardens’, alongside delicate prints with painterly textures and subtle colors depicting plants, birds, and other garden elements so finely wrought they might be mistaken for watercolors. A highlight of the exhibition is The Huntington’s rare edition of the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting (ca. 1633–1703), acquired in 2014, and on public view for the first time in this exhibition.
Research informing the exhibition and an accompanying catalog reveals much about the history and significance of Chinese pictorial printing during the period, including its influence on better-known Japanese woodblock artists and collectors. Coveted for their artistic merit and technical virtuosity, Chinese illustrated books and pictorial works were collected by the literati and wealthy merchant classes in both China and Japan. The Ten Bamboo Studio Manual, for example, contains the inscriptions of five renowned Japanese artists, successive owners who treasured the artistically ambitious and visually creative volumes as an important resource.
Lotus Leaf, Lotus Root, and Two Jitou Capsules, with calligraphy by Sun Yuwang, Fruit 10, from Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, compiled and edited by Hu Zhengyan; woodblock-printed book, ink and colors on paper, each page 9 7/8 × 11 1/4 inches (San Marino: Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens)
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The founding curator of The Huntington’s Chinese Garden, June Li, is co-curator of the exhibition and co-author of the catalog, along with Chinese woodblock print specialist Suzanne Wright, associate professor of art history at the University of Tennessee.
Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints unites several interests at The Huntington. It is the home of one of the most extensive collections of early printed books in the nation, various collections of prints by European and American artists, and one of the largest Chinese scholar’s gardens outside of China.
“This exhibition is utterly evocative of The Huntington’s transdisciplinary nature,” said Laura Skandera Trombley, Huntington president. “Woodblock prints were formative communication and aesthetic tools that served a number of purposes over time, from disseminating Buddhist teachings to depicting ideals of beauty. This perfect fusion of art and language, an integration of emotion and intellectual pursuit, is evidenced in The Huntington’s art and library collections, and is embodied in our stunning Suzhou-style Chinese Garden. We are enormously grateful for June Li’s commitment and guiding vision for this extraordinary exhibition.”
During the late Ming (1368–1644) and early Qing (1644–1912) dynasties, an increase in wealth, stemming in part from the salt, rice, and silk industries, led to higher levels of literacy and education. Consumer demand for printed words and images increased as merchants and scholars looked for ways to display their taste in drama, poetry, literature, and art. For these elites, gardens were central to a cultured life, appearing frequently in woodblock prints as subject or setting. By the 1590s, several enterprising publishers were successfully meeting the strong demand for woodblock prints. They hired renowned designers, carvers, and printers to produce sophisticated and exquisite works, raising the standards of printmaking. During the last decades of the Ming dynasty, several centers of printing around the lower Yangzi River delta grew in reputation, ushering in a golden age of Chinese pictorial printing.
“In the realm of Chinese art, pictorial woodblock prints are not as familiar as paintings, calligraphy, or ceramics,” said Li. “The subject of woodblock prints usually brings to mind Buddhist icons, Daoist deities, or folk images, rather than refined and artistic works. But, over the past few years, scholars researching the historical and artistic aspects of these prints have re-introduced a trove of beautiful works that are highly accomplished.”
Building on this story, Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints is organized into thematic sections with explanatory panels in both English and Chinese. In the first gallery visitors will find an impressive nine-and-an-half-foot long hand scroll that was commissioned by the Song emperor Taizong (r. 976–97). An unusual Buddhist work that depicts landscape rather than images of deities, it is the earliest and only religious work in the exhibition, showing the lofty achievements of woodblock printers by the 10th century, with enormous clarity of line and painstaking attention to the details of mountains, streams, trees, and tiny figures. The accomplishments of such early printing established the technical foundation from which later Ming and Qing artists grew. Illustrations of the Garden Scenery of the Hall of Encircling Jade, an extraordinary set of 45 prints produced around 1602 to 1605, will be displayed in facsimile (the only evidence that remains of the original). Taken as a whole, the prints illustrate the enormous garden estate of a successful merchant, scholar, and book publisher of the early 17th century. The detailed prints show what seems to be acres of a fashionable garden, with a large, elegant hall framing scholars seated in conversation; a courtyard where figures re-enact a famous poetry game around a table; an enclosure for carefully sculpted penjing (bonsai trees); and more than a hundred names inscribed on buildings, ponds, and rocks. The print has an elevated viewpoint and changing perspectives that allow glimpses into interior spaces, revealing a cultivated life of books and men in scholars’ robes deep in discussion.
The exhibition next focuses exclusively on prints about gardens, both historical and fictional. Historical gardens include famous sites recorded by emperors, such as Suzhou’s Lion Grove, a popular tourist destination to this day. Another imperial work, a scroll more than 25 feet long (six feet of which will be displayed), shows urban gardens and the bustle of daily life in 18th-century Beijing.
The effects of exchanges between European missionaries and the Chinese also are explored in the exhibition. One publisher incorporated biblical illustrations into his ink catalog, produced around 1616. The Qianlong emperor in 1783–86 commissioned a set of large copperplate engravings in a European style that showed details of the European pavilions in his private retreat.
Another section of the exhibition explores the styles of print artists from the late 16th through the 18th centuries in publishing centers such as Hangzhou, Huizhou, Wuxi, and Suzhou. On view are several examples by different publishers illustrating a single popular story, The Story of the Western Chamber, making clear their varying visual and artistic interpretations. In some cases, prints were made to resemble known paintings. Sometimes famous painters, such as Chen Hongshou (1598–1652), designed works expressly for printing. The exhibition includes a rare early edition of Chen’s version of The Story of the Western Chamber, as well as a set of cards he designed for a drinking game.
The exhibition also looks at accomplishments in multi-color and embossed printing, such as beautifully printed guides offering suggestions for cultivating taste. These manuals prescribed appropriate pastimes for a cultivated life, instructed on calligraphy, and advised on chess strategy and drinking games for men, and embroidery patterns for women. They also illustrated musical and dramatic works such as the popular Peony Pavilion. Many of these leisure activities took place in the garden, and prints showing scholar’s rocks, which had become precious items for the discerning collector, will be represented by finely printed editions of well-known works including a rare edition of The Stone Compendium of Plain Garden. Two examples of actual scholar’s rocks from The Huntington’s collection will be on view to complement the book.
Additionally, four iPads in the galleries will allow for a deeper investigation of Illustrations of the Garden Scenery of the Hall of Encircling Jade (a work showing the large garden estate of the successful merchant and publisher Wang Tingna) and allow visitors to see all the leaves of The Huntington’s Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, a work that due to its delicate nature can only be viewed a few leaves at a time in the galleries.
Visitors of all ages can view Chinese woodblock printing techniques in a gallery featuring a replica of a printing table, along with carving tools, colored inks, paper, brushes, and burnishers. To better understand the multi-color printing process, a set of woodblocks and step-by-step prints replicating a page of the Ten Bamboo Studio Manual will be on view, a display commissioned from the Shanghai publisher Duo Yun Xuan especially for the exhibition.
T. June Li and Suzanne E. Wright, Gardens, Art, and Commerce in Chinese Woodblock Prints (San Marino: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2016), 176 pages, ISBN 978-0873282673, $50.
June Li details the origins and provenance of The Huntington’s Ten Bamboo Studio Manual of Calligraphy and Painting, a landmark of multi-block color printing, with particular emphasis on its appeal to 18th- and 19th-century Japanese collectors. Suzanne Wright traces the development of three distinct regional styles of woodblock-printed illustrations during the late Ming dynasty, with striking examples of each style drawn from the exhibition. The 176-page volume, published by The Huntington, features more than 150 illustrations, including full-color plates of each work in the exhibition.
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Exhibition Symposium | Word and Image: Chinese Woodblock Prints
The Huntington, San Marino, CA, 12 November 2016
The late Ming period witnessed an unprecedented production of woodblock images printed for many different purposes, including illustrations for drama and games, decorations for stationery paper or ink making, as well as pictorial works for the market. This symposium will explore the relationship and interaction between image and text in woodblock prints during the late Ming and early Qing periods. Register online here.
• Kai-Wing Chow (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), “Nature, Print, and Art: Commerce and Garden Culture in Late Imperial China”
• He Yuming (University of California, Davis), “Illustrating Encyclopedic Knowledge in the Ming”
• Richard Strassberg (University of California, Los Angeles), “The Kangxi Emperor’s Thirty-Six Views: The Making of an Imperial Publication”
• Meng-ching Ma (National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan), “‘Poetic Pictures’ in Late-Ming Illustrated Dramatic Publications”
• Suzanne Wright (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), “The Swallow Messenger: Text and Image”
• Hu Jun (Northwestern University), “A Panoply of Metaphor: Painting and Intermediality in the Late Ming”
Conference | The Age of Luxury: The Georgian Country House
Looking ahead to the fall, from the Sussex Archaeological Society:
The Age of Luxury: The Georgian Country House and Its Setting, 1700–1820
King’s Church, Lewes, 15 October 2016
Organized by Sue Berry
J. Lambert of Lewes, detail of a watercolour showing Newick Place near Lewes, the home of Lady Vernon, 1780 (Sussex Archaeological Society)
Between 1700 and 1820, old houses were transformed and new ones built, some on a spectacular scale by owners who would now be regarded as multi-millionaires. From the later seventeenth century right throughout the eighteenth, the influence of the Grand Tour on country house owners was considerable, not least as many of them travelled abroad themselves, seeing European fashions at first hand. Some Sussex houses still have collections purchased on Grand Tours, though many have since been sold off. Architectural styles were varied, reflecting the influence of Dutch, French, and Classical inspirations as well as our home grown Gothic. Landscapes also evolved from formal to the famous landscape parks of the mid to later eighteenth century. Interiors became more showy, increasingly reflecting the high quality of British craftsmanship. Ever more servants were needed to run a lavish lifestyle which included racing, hunting and other expensive social activities. Our speakers, all specialists in their fields, will address these many aspects of the Georgian country house.
We are hoping to organise visits related to this conference during the summer of 2016, which will offer participants the opportunity to explore aspects of our themes ahead of the conference itself. These events will be advertised to Sussex Archaeological Society members in our April newsletter and details will be available to everyone online. Charges and number restrictions will apply to these. Priority will be given to those who have booked to attend this conference.
Advance booking is strongly recommended as we cannot guarantee there will be places available on the door. Registration on the day opens at 9.30am when you can sign in and collect your copy of the delegate handbook. The ticket price includes a light lunch and coffee and tea on arrival and in the breaks. If you have special dietary requirements or particular access needs, we will do our best to accommodate these if we have advance notice.
King’s Church, Brooks Road, Lewes BN7 2BY. Lewes is easily accessible by road and public transport. There is no parking on site, but there is on-street parking around the building and a long-stay car park half a mile away. Lewes station with its large car park is just under one mile away, and buses stop at the start of Brooks Road. Further details, including directions, will be sent with confirmation of your booking. Non-members are welcome. Please direct all conference enquiries to: Lorna Gartside, Sussex Archaeological Society, Bull House, 92 High Street, LEWES BN7 1XH, email: members@sussexpast.co.uk.
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S A T U R D A Y, 1 5 O C T O B E R 2 0 1 6
10:00 Welcome and introduction, Maurice Howard (University of Sussex)
10:05 The English Country House, 1680–1820: Architecture and Planning, Geoffrey Tyack (Kellogg College, University of Oxford)
10:45 The Grand Tour and the Creation of the Country House in Eighteenth-Century Britain, Jonathan Yarker (Lowell Libson, Ltd.)
11:25 Tea and coffee
11:45 England, France, and the Netherlands: Garden Design in England, 1680–1710, Sally Jeffery (independent architectural and garden historian)
12:25 Pleasure in the Pleasure Gardens of Georgian England, Stephen Bending (University of Southampton)
1:05 Lunch
2:00 From Rococo to Neo-Classicism: Fashioning the Georgian Interior, Susan Bracken (independent historian specialising in furnishings)
2:40 ‘It gives me Reason to believe your Ladyship does not think me a servant to sute her.’ Household Management and Servant Organisation, Julie Day (independent historian of the English country house)
3:20 Tea and coffee
3:40 The Country House Guidebook in the Long Eighteenth Century: A Nuanced Message, Paula Riddy (independent art historian)
4:20 Much Spending, Not Always Afforded: The Transformation of the Country House and Its Setting in Sussex, Sue Berry (specialist in Georgian seaside resorts and the country house estates of Sussex)
5:00 Questions and end
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